confessional hymns for the devil, himself

Comments: I've decided to lurk over into this fandom for a little while. I've read the books three times through and like most people, am a fan. This is a very different take on the trilogy, and I hope most people like it. Some of the concepts of the AU setting are derived from movies like Gamer and a little of the Matrix; they're only mentioned a little in the beginning however. This is not a crossover.

All references are going to made from the book, so if you're one of those people who've only seen the movies, be sure to PM me if you read something that's canon and you don't understand and I'll help clear it up for you. :) Shout-out to my beta, who helped out smooth out some inconsistencies and made this beautiful.

Rating: M, due to adult themes, language, and a little romance down the way

Disclaimer: I do not own anything mentioned within this story that is copyrighted.

Clove jerks into consciousness and is caught in a moment where her body is blissfully unaware of the state that it's in. The searing pain in her head is absent temporarily, until she finally clocks back in and it takes her absolutely by surprise, and it's all she can do to keep from screaming out loud. Clove can almost feel herself hemorrhaging, the drag of a thousand red-hot fingers scraping away at her brain. Pushing energy into her stiff limbs, she barely manages to roll onto her side and heave violently over the edge of the gurney. It's not much more than bile, which would have to mean she's been out for at least a day or so.

Clove sinks into the hard surface under her. She learned long ago, as a child, that by lying so, so still you could almost quit existing. It was a useful technique on those days that her incompetency and failures during her training overwhelmed her. She waits until the sound of her heartbeat has dulled to a soft whisper before she begins to take in her surroundings. The room is a pale shade of green and smells faintly of antiseptic and cotton. There's a large glass window directly in front of her, but the blinds are drawn to keep people from peering in and her from seeing out.

Clove's head still throbs agonizingly, and she tries to block out the reason why that is. It's a futile effort, though. Images of Thresh grasping her between his two large hands and then banging her skull savagely with a large rock scramble around all the questions that are just waiting to be acknowledged in her pounding head. She remembers what it felt like to die, remembers how painful it had been to lie on that soft grass in the arena and just wait till her life slipped away.

Cato had knelt above her and begged her to stay with him. Clove hadn't been able to tell then if he was being sincere or why exactly he had rushed to her aid to begin with. She wishes she had found the last remains of her strength in her broken body to ask him, but her vision had been completely consumed by the brightness that had overtaken her as soon as Thresh disappeared.

Cautiously, she raises a shaky hand to her throat; it still feels raw from screaming. Pain is confusing in this current realm Clove's in. If she remembers dying clearly enough, then why does everything still hurt? She shakes her head almost imperceptibly. No. This isn't Purgatory. She never did have an affinity for religion or afterlives so the only viable reason that she's breathing now upon this table is that the Capitol saw fit to bring her back. How they accomplished this is frightening, but she tries not to dwell on it right now.

Breathing through her nose, Clove sits up as carefully and fluidly as possible. Immediately, her head aches worse than before, and she swallows rapidly to keep from getting sick again. A lightweight white gown hangs around her small frame just falling past her knees.

Sheer willpower has her touching her feet to the cold floor; her limbs seem so shaky, and she's not positive that her head and stomach will hold up to the change in equilibrium. Half-leaning onto the bed, Clove takes in the rest of the room. There is a glass door across from her; that definitely deserves an investigation. Aside from that, the room is devoid of everything except the gurney and herself. It's sterile. Could she be in a med clinic?

"H-hello?" The syllables break out of her throat roughly, and the sound of her own voice almost has Clove clamping her mouth shut. Silence answers.

Gripping the bare tile with her toes, she shuffles to the door. The handle twists easily under her hand. It's enough to make Clove pause, a cold electrical charge sweeping through her chest. An unlocked door in an otherwise barren room? No one to greet her when she woke up?

Clove wonders whether this is a poorly-disguised trap or if the people who've held her here have deserted the place. It's warm out in the hallway though, and it's enough to steady her resolve. Her door is situated at the end of the hall and from her vantage point, Clove can see what looks like the remains of a scuffle. A sister metal bed is lying on its side along with a pair of bright yellow restraints; the ends still screwed tightly onto the bed's sides. The room adjacent is in the same haphazard condition. Someone was here at some point, and they were not happy.

"Sir, he cannot process so much in so little time! Please allow me to administer the sedative." The voice echoes down the corridor from somewhere around the corner, warbled and pleading.

"He was one of our strongest Tributes; a little pain will not incapacitate him."

The second voice is familiar and along with it comes the image of the cruel, cold eyes of a snake.

Snow.

Snow is here and if anybody has the answers it would be him. The mystery of who has, more or less, resurrected her is no more though the pill is a little hard to swallow. As a Career, she never had a second thought about what the Capitol was capable of; it was so easy to follow along with their wishes when the rewards were so great. Careers had won the Games year after year through the opportunities afforded to them by the Capitol. This did not make sense, however.

Clove knows she could play this one of two ways: barrel towards them irate and wild, or go back to her room as though she'd never left. She had always been one for theatrics, and so she's poised and ready to let loose all her confusion and frustration on the two men when she hears it. When she hears him. It stops her cold in her tracks. He sounds muffled, like he is speaking through his hands but her chest still lurches at the familiarity of his voice.

Had Cato won?

Is he the reason she's standing here and breathing instead of laying six feet under dirt? Relief swims through the agony still pounding through her head. Cato winning means everything in their district; the difference between life and death. She pushes herself forward down the hall and through the open door where their voices were first heard.

Cato and the other unknown man stare at her, bewildered, as Clove steps further into the room, though Snow outright avoids her gaze. Perhaps he suspected she had been lurking out in the hallway the whole time. Cato suddenly lunges at the President, outraged.

"You sick fuck! Her, too? How many of the others did you bring back?!" he spits, struggling against the hold the strange man has on him.

"So I am alive because of you? What for?" Clove directs this question at Snow, but he looks like he would want nothing more than to ignore her, but she's now the elephant in the room and there isn't much he can do about it now. Cato stops struggling against his restraints, seemingly interested in what Snow has to say for himself.

Unsurprisingly, he makes an aborted motion for the other man to explain for him. Clove gets a good look at this stranger for the first time. Cato towers over him and she suspects she does, too. Wisps of gray hair lay over his speckled head in a greasy comb-over, and his lab coat is a dingy off-white. Doctor flashes through her mind briefly, but he looks far too nervous to be of any valuable use to Snow.

"You see," he begins in his stuttering, nervous voice, "we haven't brought you back at all. You've never left. I administered a sedative strong enough to last for a few days, but you and your district partner seem to have woken up ahead of schedule."

Clove narrows her eyes, angry, and stalks towards him.

"I died in that arena," she hisses, "That's not something I could have dreamt up; Thresh killed me as I was going after that District 12 bitch." Cato allows an expression of hurt cross his face briefly and Clove knows he's thinking of that day, too. When he had knelt over her and begged for her to stay…

The doctor looks frantic now since Cato has continued to glare murderously at Snow.

"No, no, you never died," he protests, becoming seemingly more nervous by the minute. "No one did."

"I don't think you should tell her just yet," Snow finally pipes in. "Clove has never been one for...stability." The insult slides over her but doesn't penetrate; it isn't the first time she's had someone suspect she is a loose cannon.

"Except I want to hear this," Cato interjects, crossing his arms over his chest once the doctor releases him enough to do so. His stance is strong and predatory, so Clove knows there's no way that Snow can just dismiss the whole situation now that Cato has a chance to get at him again. In a fair fight, there would be no hope for the old man against Cato's youth and brute strength. He'll be forced to tell them, even if he does think she's touched in the head.

"Perhaps you would like some pain reliever first?" The doctor's voice is more timid than before and Clove's starting to actually think he believes what Snow said about her, "for your head?" She tries not to question how he knows her head feels like it's threatening to split open, but she recognizes it as a stalling action.

"No. I feel fine," she lies effortlessly.

The doctor takes a deep breath and runs a shaking finger along his brow. "The Games were not real. The other tributes and you were never actually present." He looks reluctant to continue. "We interfaced your brains with a simulated arena-".

This time Cato is the one shocked into silence. Herself, however?

She lunges at Snow without hesitation, teeth bared, and it's by sheer timing that the doctor is able to stop her with a sharp needle to the back of the arm before Clove can do any major damage to the thick cord of tendon in Snow's neck. There's no way she trained her entire life to fight in a fake game and still come up the loser.

Snow wants to think she's crazy and disturbed?

Clove will show him disturbed.